| I always shopped at Morrisons even after the revamp. The fresh prepared fruit had gone up from £1 to £1.25 and the ‘restaurant pizzas’ were 3 for £2: 50 the week before, but are now 3 for £ 3.00 so I went to Tesco and was surprised at the offers and they gave me £12 voucher off my next shop, when I spend £60. So, I am not going to shop at Morrisons.Again, a recent poll by Sun City “Morri-Poll” reveals the supermarket’s customers are fed up with posh displays such as “misty” exotic vegetables and delis. As one customer, who shopped in Morrisons since 1965 has stopped shopping in the supermarket, while a staff claimed that “I’ve worked for Morrisons for the last six years and the last 16 months have been the worst.” Such type of comments about a supermarket is particularly dangerous, given a study conducted in 1999 by customer service research firm TARP shows that: * One unhappy customer tells ten people about their experience. Each of these ten people tells another five people, meaning up to 50 people get to know of one person's poor experience with a firm. * central-e-commerce unfolds that a dissatisfied consumer will tell between 9 and 15 people about their experience. About 13% of dissatisfied customers will even tell more than 20 people!…
The mission of Morrisons Supermarket, on the other hand, is to secure the growth of its business in a sustainable manner, while at the same time constantly improving the company’s profitability. The strategy to achieve this involves four elements:…
Harvey Norman is one of the biggest consumer electronic retailer in Australia (D Richard, 2010), well-known for its recognisable brand name and local community involvement, Harvey Norman had achieved steady growth since its establishment on 1982 with 195 stores nationwide and 69 stores outside Australia. The success of Harvey Norman can’t solely be attributed to its services performance as a retailer nor solely to its physical assets and property, this report will examine the structure and resources of Harvey Norman both physical and intangible with a focus on the latter, of importance are intangible resources that give competitive advantage from its individual competence, internal, and external capital, an invisible balance sheet will also be derived to put these intangible resources in perspective. Following that a recommendation for Harvey Norman management will be presented on sustaining its competitive advantage and growth through the management of intangible.…
Living and studying in Australia for the past 11 months, going to do my grocery shopping at Coles or at Woolworths has become part of my routine. And because it is such an ordinary thing to do, we tend to forget that we make part of a much bigger picture, and are contributing to several factors regarding the Australian economy. However, this race for the best has its advantages and disadvantages, and of course, this is affecting us as well.…
This essay aims to conduct an operational analysis on IGA (Independent Grocers Alliance) which is one of the top five retail stores in Australia. This study examines the relationships between productivity, administrative effectiveness, customer satisfaction, and employee attitudes over time.…
References: Baloch, Q. B. & Inam, M. 2009. Strategic Competitiveness: Creating Firm 's Future. Journal of Managerial Sciences, 3(1): 87-109. Barney, J. 1991. Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1): 99. Barney, J. B. 1995. Looking inside for competitive advantage. Academy of Management Executive, 9(4): 49-61. Berman, S. L., Down, J., & Hill, C. W. L. 2002. Tacit knowledge as a source of competitive advantage in the national basketball association. Academy of Management Journal, 45(1): 13-31. Bourgeois III, L. J. 1980. Strategy and Environment: A Conceptual Integration. Academy of Management Review, 5(1): 25-39. Chattopadhyay, P., Glick, W. H., & Huber, G. P. 2001. Organizational actions in response to threats and opportunities. Academy of Management Journal 44(5): 937-955. Dess, G. G., Gupta, A., Hennart, J.-F., & Hill, C. W. L. 1995. Conducting and Integrating Strategy Research at the International, Corporate, and Business Levels: Issues and Directions. Journal of Management, 21(3): 357. Hanson, D., Dowling, P., Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., & Hoskisson, R. E. 2008. Strategic Management: Competitiveness & Globalisation: Thomson. Hawawini, G., Subramanian, V., & Verdin, P. 2003. Is performance driven by industry- or firm-specific factors? A new look at the evidence. Strategic Management Journal, 24(1): 1. Hitt, M. A., Keats, B. W., & DeMarie, S. M. 1998. Navigating in the new competitive landscape: Building strategic flexibility and competitive advantage in the 21st century. Academy of Management Executive, 12(4): 22-42. Ireland, R. D. & Hitt, M. A. 2005. Achieving and Maintaining Strategic Competitiveness in the 21st Century: The Role of Strategic Leadership. The Academy of Management Executive (1993-2005), 19(4): 63-77. Lei, D. & Slocum, J. W. 2005. Strategic and organisational requirements for competitive advantage. Academy of Management Executive, 19(1): 31-34. McGahan, A. M. & Porter, M. E. 2003. The emergence and sustainability of abnormal profits. Strategic organisation, 1: 79-108. Porter, M. E. 1996. What Is Strategy? Harvard Business Review, 74(6): 61-78. Porter, M. E. 2008. The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business Review, 86(1): 7893. Rice, J. L., Martin, N. J., Carpenter, M. A., & Sanders, W. G. 2010. Strategic Management: A Dynamic Perspective, Concept and Cases: Pearson. Sirmon, D. G., Hitt, M. A., & Ireland, R. D. 2007. Managing firm resources in dynamic environments to create value:Looking inside the black box. Academy of Management Review, 32(1): 273-292. Walker, F.; Vegemite Could Go Chinese: Dick Smith; http://www.foodmakers.com.au/food-makersarticles/2006/2/5/vegemite-could-go-chinese-dick-smith/; 22.08, 2011.…
The main vision of Country Road, like any organisation out there, is to earn market share. One way of doing this is by increasing customer satisfaction. Country Road exited the wholesale market in 2006 and entered the retail business (Annual report, 2006). The purpose of doing this was to allow them to have complete control over their business and ensured that their customers received consistent shopping experiences (Annual report, 2006). As customer service is a very important core competency in retailing business, Country Road has introduced a fair and flexible workplace in order to retain and attract good employees (Working Families Council, 2010).…
This report provides a view on operations of SAINSBURY’S , the third largest supermarket chain across United Kingdom. SAINSBURY’S , in spite of being the longest standing retail chain has been facing stiff competition from rivals like TESCO , MORRISONS. The competitors seemed to have developed at a faster pace since SAINSBURY’S has been through a difficult time in recent years and TESCO is now twice the size in terms of turnover.…
With the recovery of Australia’s economy, Myer has accomplished a five-year plan with the goal of improve it’s sales and profits. Myer decided to increase investment in new brands, store facilities, online retailing and customer services which lead to same-store sales growth. While with the job cuts last year, the cost of sales has decreased. Myer’s profitability seems to be well ahead.…
Morrisons Plc annual report and financial statement (2011) stated that Morrisons is one of the fourth largest food retailers by sales with an annual turnover in excess of £16 billion and account for 12.8% in the grocery industry (See appendix 1). However, the UK supermarket industry is intense competition so it required more new and effective tools to compete with rivals (Urbonavičius and Ivanauskas, 2005). Hence, for retaining and developing, Morrisons is not only needed to have excellent strategic operation management but also diversified itself in to the new market. This essay will analyze Morrisons’s operations management, its value chain and other aspects relate to quality which leads Morrisons difference from other supermarket.…
Woolworths is one of the top 25 food retailers in the world holding approximately 31% of the food retail sector in Australia, with approximately 3100 suppliers providing some 3162 stores across Australia and New Zealand and employing over 191,000 people. Woolworths is constantly changing to meet consumer demands. Since opening it’s first store in 1924, with a nominal capital of 25,000 shares only 15,000 of those shares were available to the public. Of that 15,000 only 11,707 shares were purchased. Who would have thought that Woolworths would become a household name? Branching out to liquor, petrol, general merchandise, electronics, and most recently hardware. They service over 24 million customers a week in Australia and New Zealand combined. They are consistently investing in their core business and also coming up with new customer initiatives to reward their customers for shopping with them. Partnering with other large companies such as Optus and Qantas has provided Woolworths with a major boost.…
Marks and Spencer has a reputation of greatness and quality in the U.K. Their five tenets of operating principals are the cornerstone of the company’s strength in the industry. They fostered strong human relations with its customers, suppliers, and staff through offering selective range of high-quality merchandise at reasonable prices, encouraging suppliers to use top-notch modern technology, growth, and cooperation to enforce the highest standard of quality.…
As opined by Swanson and Kelly (2011), ‘many companies have recognized their customers as valuable assets and take steps to ensure that when service failures do occur, there are processes in place to respond’. As an example, Ashmart is an indigenous grocery retail chain that provides top quality products and services at discounted prices and guarantees an extraordinary shopping experience. Prior to Ashmart’s entry into the Nigerian market, an extraordinary shopping experience and low prices were mutually exclusive events. Following the proper grasp of the Nigerian Market, Ashmart did all within its capability to replacing high markups with low prices and guaranteeing an awesome shopping experience for its consumers. The company business model is summarized into a phrase mantra that says: ‘Shop Smart! Pay less at Ashmart!!’ Owing to Ashmart strategy in terms of consumers’ satisfaction, the retail chain has experienced consistent upward foot-traffics at a speed not known to the Nigerian business environment.…
The company Marks & Spencer (M&S) is one of the UK's leading retailers of clothing, food, home products and financial services. Ten million people shop each week in over 375 M&S stores in the UK. In addition M&S has 155 stores managed under franchise in 28 territories, mostly in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Far East, as well as stores in the Republic of Ireland, Hong Kong and a US supermarket group, Kings Super Markets. The company is structured in business units covering food and general merchandise. The general merchandise unit is further divided into women’s clothing, menswear, lingerie, beauty and home. These units all contribute to the company’s vision ‘to be the standard against which others are measured’. Central to the running of these units are the values of M&S. These include quality, value, service, innovation and trust. Each business unit develops its own CSR strategy based around the brand value of trust. The issues tackled in the strategies are identified from a combination of customer research, understanding within the business and by talking with other key stakeholders, NGOs, government etc. For each issue an action plan is developed which balances customer and stakeholder expectations and other commercial pressures. For example, for food, 16 issues have been identified ranging from pesticides to labour standards.…
Woolworths’ vision is to provide quality products and services to its customers all the time through price strategies, fresh food strategies and human resource strategies. Woolworth’s main strategies are to increase efficiency and be cost effective. To achieve this Woolworths has integrated and implemented several strategies which include every-day low price strategy and; Project Refresh strategy. The every-day low prices strategy addresses this, and attempts to offer customers everyday lower prices through price reductions on all products. Project Refresh is a strategy designed to drive the cost of doing business down. Organisational structure, staff leadership and stakeholders all play an important role in implementing and integrating strategies. Woolworths’ has experienced great success and should continue along the same path through innovative, tactful and profitable strategies. Woolworths fulfilment of its strategies it due to it core competencies and its ability to reposition itself on the market and efforts to differentiate itself. Woolworths are now recording their first billion-dollar profit. Due to implemented strategies profit is up 24.3 per cent. “Earnings before interest and tax topped $1.7 billion - an increase of 32.3 per cent” (ABC2006)…